A funeral tent was erected in Gaza City on Tuesday afternoon to honor prominent Egyptian Muslim scholar, Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi, who passed away on Monday in Doha, at the age of 96.
Representatives of Palestinian political groups, Muslim scholars, preachers, dignitaries, and members of the community organized a mourning tent for the eminent Egyptian.
Al-Qaradawi, who was a vocal advocate for Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, was considered one of the most important Muslim scholars of the last century and one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leaders.
Born under British colonial rule in Egypt in 1926, Qaradawi studied the religious sciences during his youth, in which he combined his Islamic education with anti-colonial activism. He was arrested several times throughout the 1950s as a result of his political activism, as well as his association with the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
That eventually led him to move to Qatar in the 1960s, where he acquired the position of Dean of the Faculty of Shariah at Qatar University.
Qaradawi openly condemned the 2013 military coup against the democratically-elected President Mohammed Morsi – another key member of the Muslim Brotherhood – and opposed the new government under Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Following his condemnation, he was unable to return to Egypt for a second time, after his first exile prior to the 2011 revolution.
(All Photos: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
